Chief Justice SA Bobde on Thursday criticized a plea asking the amended Citizenship Act to be declared constitutional, saying such petitions won’t help when the objective should be to bring about peace in difficult times.

The Chief Justice observed that the country is going through difficult times and now is not the right time to hear pleas on constitutional validation of CAA.

A bench headed by CJI Bobde expressed surprise over the petition and said this is the first time that someone is seeking that an Act be declared as constitutional.

The observation came when an advocate, Vineet Dhanda, sought the listing of his petition asking that the CAA be declared constitutional, and that all states be instructed to implement this.

The Supreme Court also said it would hear petitions challenging the validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act as soon as violence stopped.